Drawings Can Be Dangerous
by Charon the Sabercat
Summary: Charon and Double F draw to pass the time in Halloween Town, not knowing that there's a poltergeist out there that brings their drawings to life! Now, it's done! Kinda long final chapter, beware of fluff at the end ew!
1. Weirdo Creatures

Drawings are Dangerous  
  
Charon's creativity goes out of hand when a poltergeist brings her sketches to life. Now she, Double F, and the citizens of Halloween need to fight off No Face spirits, giant black jaguars, and their leaders: gargoyle versions of Jack and Sally! This's goofy, but I love it!  
  
Charon and Double F sat outside of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's treehouse, their usual first stop in Halloween town. They were both bored, they had run out of things to talk about, and both were stuck in their disgusting school uniforms.  
  
Charon wore her hair back in her ponytail, hoping that the meager rubber band wouldn't snap on her. Her white polo shirt was tucked into a khaki skort, which she liked because it was the only clean thing in her wardrobe at the moment with pockets. Surprisingly, she wore shoes this time; specially designed Nike tennis shoes, specially modelled for paw feet. It her hands she held a book (although the boo itself had no title, she called it "Faeries of the World"), on which she had a few scraps of white computer paper. She toyed with a mechanical pencil in her free hand.  
  
Double F, her hair pulled back into a braid, had long ago untucked her yellow button-down shirt. Her dark plaid shorts were stiff and uncomfortable; brand new clothes never really fit her right. She wore tennis shoes over her rounded paws as well, although these were Adidas, not Nike. In her hand she clutched a three-ring binder, stuffed to the brim with drawings of Neopets and Kingdom Hearts characters.  
  
Double F's wings twitched; this was her sign of displeasure and boredom. "How long are they gonna be?"  
  
"I dunno," Charon sighed, checking her watch. "They should've been here 5 minutes ago."  
  
"Did they say how they were getting here?" Double F asked her friend with the watch. She scratched her tail absentmindedly.  
  
"On the bathtub," Charon answered, turning her eyes skyward as she remembered Lock's little speech about when to meet him.  
  
"On the bathtub?"  
  
"In the bathtub, sorry." Charon began to sketch and doodle. "If they'd ridden on Jara, they would've been here by now."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Jara," Charon explained as she showed Double F her quarter-finished picture. "Didn't I explain her to you?"  
  
"Uh uh," the anthro-griffin replied.  
  
"Big black jaguar, really friendly?" Charon finished her drawing and began to color it in. "Travels with Nalami and Marius?"  
  
"Not ringin' a bell."  
  
Charon shook her head, exhaled through her nose, and began to draw some more. In no time at all, she had produced drawings of all three of the creatures she had told Double F about. And more....  
  
"Okay," Melanie pointed to a picture of a generic big cat. "That's Jara?"  
  
"Yep," Charon replied, a smile plastered onto her cleft lips.  
  
Double F pointed to another cat, this one skinny and graceful looking. "That's Nalami, the black cheetah."  
  
"Right."  
  
A larger black cat, this one bulky and intimidating. "Marius, size of a horse, really mean."  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"And that's No Face!"  
  
Charon giggled. "Yeah!"  
  
"Good job on No-Face; you forgot the little spots above his eyes though."  
  
"Oh well, I'll fix it later."  
  
"And Isaac and Lisa!" Double F pointed to the last two pictures. "Jack and Sally's Gargoyle Twins!"  
  
"Yeah! But I might give Lisa a different name, like... that!"  
  
Double F read Lisa's secondary name. "Wow, pretty!"  
  
Charon squealed in happiness. She handed the book to Double F. "Your turn!"  
  
"Okay," Double F took the pencil and began to sketch at lightning fast speed. "That's a Shadow, a Darkball... gimme a minute.... gargoyle, there's a white mushroom..."  
  
"Wow!" Charon was amazed at how little time it took for Melanie to draw all of her favorite Heartless. "You are So better than me at drawing!"  
  
"Aa, we're even," Double F inwardly bragged. "You've just got your own style."  
  
It was true; if you had looked over your shoulder, you would've seen how different they were. Charon's drawings were crude and one-dimensional, yet accurate; most of the drawings were one continuous pencil stroke. Double F's, however, had more of an anime-manga touch; they strayed slightly from the original designs, but were recognizable.  
  
"Yeah, but your style's better."  
  
"Charon."  
  
"CHARON! DOUBLE F!"  
  
"Lock!" The two teenagers jumped up, leaving their drawings on the ground. "Finally!"  
  
Lock waved at them from the bathtub, Shock and Barrel behind him, holding two bags of chocolate. "Hi girls! Ready for the fondue!?"  
  
"Alright!" Charon lept into the bathtub, nearly landing on the marshmallows and coat hangers.  
  
"Never had fondue before!" Double F giggled.  
  
"Should we get our stuff?" Charon asked, pointing to their books.  
  
"Nah, you can leave it," Barrel said as he yanked on the bathtub's chain, making it turn around. "Nothin's gonna happen."  
  
"Wow," Charon sighed. "A place where you can leave your stuff on the ground and no one steals it."  
  
"It's paradise," Double F let herself relax. "Well, paradise with dead people."  
  
And the kids laughed and left, riding off into the forest. And their papers lay motionless by the treehouse... for a while.  
  
***  
  
"Oh.... what is thiss?" a single voice spoke to itself. "Little drawings- Oo, it is Jack! But wait, it is not! Jack does not have wings!"  
  
A mouth formed out of thin air and floated above the ground, a la the Chesire Cat. It spoke with a high-pitched voice, squeaky and annoying. "There is Sally, and Sally does not have wings! Oo, these are not creatures of this world!"  
  
A body formed around the mouth; a thin, gangly man in jester's clothes with purple skin and green eyes. "My, my, these creatures are marvelous! These creatures deserve to live and breathe on their own, not just live upon a piece of paper!"  
  
He held his lanky hands above the papers and began chanting something in Celtic. As he chanted, a dust devil began to form under his palms. This dust devil tossed around the papers to a point where they burst to pieces and formed a miniture, white tornado. And the man kept chanting, until...  
  
A thin, bony hand shot out of vortex and dug itself into the dust....  
  
***  
  
"So you look for the ones that are about to fall off?" Sally tugged weakly at the vine of a pumpkin, Jack standing behind her.  
  
"Yes, ma'am. That's how you know they're ripe." Jack bent down and gave Sally's vine a strong jerk, snapping the jack-o-lantern away. "It's a bit hard, but it's tried and true."  
  
"Oh, I never knew that," Sally memorized. "Thank you."  
  
"Now, this one's pretty big," Jack pondered. "So, we'll need some help carrying it back to town; you can't carry a pumpkin this big back to town by hand or-"  
  
"Or you might drop it."  
  
"Right!" Jack gave Sally a friendly tap on the arm. "You're learning very quickly, Sally; I'm impressed."  
  
Sally blushed, closed her eyes childishly, and smiled. "Thank you!"  
  
As she opened her eyes, something caught the corner of her eye. She turned to head to get a closer look at it.  
  
It was a black lioness; a black lioness with glowing green eyes. As Sally watched, the lioness turned to Sally and looked her straight in the eyes. Straight at her with those empty, gaseous eyes for 30 seconds before looking away, picking up the pumpkin by the stem, turning to Halloween Town, and walking.  
  
Sally watched in curiosity for a few lingering moments before looking at Jack, who had also been temporarily hypnotized by the monster. "Do you know that thing?"  
  
"No," Jack responded, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like that before."  
  
"Where do you think it came from?" Sally asked.  
  
"Well, my first guess would be another holiday, but I doubt it," Jack scratched his chin. "Let's head back to town, see if anyone knows."  
  
***  
  
No sooner had the two psuedo-monsters gotten to town than they saw another outside-creature. This one, however, wasn't a cat; it was a mushroom. A short, white mushroom with little arms.  
  
And it was playing charades with the town monsters.  
  
"Um... five words!" shouted Sadir, the werewolf. "Five words!"  
  
"First word...." The Mayor tried to analyze the vague movements.  
  
"She's pulling something!" cried Poppy, the gray witch.  
  
"No, it's rowing, like on a boat!" argued Cronus, the cyclops.  
  
"What is going on here!" Jack yelled more than he asked, scaring the little mushroom and everyone around it.  
  
"Yah!" The Mayor's face snapped to the worried side, then just as quickly moved back to the happy side. "Oh, Jack, you scared us! We were just playing charades with your little friend here!"  
  
"I don't know this thing," Jack spoke blatantly.  
  
"You don't?" Sadir marveled.  
  
"We thought she was a friend of yours!" Poppy wheezed.  
  
"It's not a she!" Cronus yelped.  
  
"Kish kish!" giggled the mushroom.  
  
Jack rubbed his temples, Sally standing faithfully behind him. "(sigh) Listen, has anyone ever seen-"  
  
Jack stumbled back as the black lioness rubbed against his leg, still carrying the pumpkin from earlier. Sally pointed to the cat.  
  
"Do any of you know that?"  
  
The group of five (including the mushroom) shook their heads.  
  
"This one-" Cronus pointed to the white mushroom. "-showed up after the girls came, though."  
  
"Girls?" Jack and Sally spoke in unison.  
  
"Oh, yes, Charon and Gina!" The Mayor remembered, twiddling his fingers. "They left a while ago with the Boogie Boys to cook fondue!"  
  
"I wonder what that has to do with anythi-" Jack snapped back into reality. "Did you say fondue?"  
  
"Who does fondue anymore?" Sally asked herself.  
  
"I'll see if we can't find the girls," Jack told the town members. He tapped Sally's shoulder. "Sally, could you bring the little mushroom with us?"  
  
"Okay," Sally near-mindlessly followed him out of town and into the forest, holding the mushroom's hand and leading him away.  
  
***  
  
"Cover Barrel in fondue, throw him a bag! Cover him with chocolate and see if he gets mad!"  
  
"Nope!"  
  
The five children in the bathtub laughed uncontrollably as Barrel, coated in chocolate and Nerds candies, popped out of his burlap sack and delivered his line.j  
  
"This is too ridiculous to be real!" Charon laughed through a sugar induced high.  
  
"Gahahahaha!" Double F's falcon-esque cry shot through the air.  
  
Lock looked away from the giddy group and saw Jack, the Pumpkin King, and Sally, the-not-yet-but-probably-would-soon-be Pumpkin Queen, standing before him. "Oh, Jack, Sally, hi! D'you want some fondue?"  
  
"No, thank you," Jack waved his hand. He waved the mushroom to his side. "Do any of you know this thing?"  
  
"No, I don't think so-" Double F began to say before she saw the White Mushroom. "HOLY HEARTS, where'd that thing come from!?"  
  
"A mushroom?" Charon lept out of the bathtub, crept up to the mushroom, and bopped it sharply on the head. It bounced and wobbled, like rubber.  
  
"Ah! Kishkishkishkishksih!" Mushroom scolded.  
  
"Oh, neato!" Barrel squiggled out of his sack and tried to wiggle out of the bathtub, but he was still slippery from the chocolate.  
  
"How'd this get off the paper!?" Charon breathed.  
  
"Off the paper?" Sally gasped.  
  
"I drew that!" Double F pointed to the Mushroom. "I drew that! I even did a little speach bubble above its head so that it said 'Kish kish'! And I drew that!"  
  
Jack looked above his head to see a Shadow Heartless leaping through the trees, zooming over their heads and deeper into the forest.  
  
"Cool!" Shock laughed.  
  
"We should find out where they're coming from," Jack said determinedly. "Lock, Shock, Barrel, you head back to your treehouse."  
  
"Why?!" The kids whined.  
  
"Go!" Jack pointed to town.  
  
"Okay!" The Terrible Trio sent the bathtub on its way, leaving the two teens from the Real World behind.  
  
"Double F, Charon, if you really did draw these things, which I don't believe at all, you should know how they think. You come with me."  
  
"Okay..." Charon nodded. Double F half-bowed.  
  
"This could take a while, Sally," Jack said, adressing his soul mate. "Why don't you head back home?"  
  
"Okay," Sally responded, kissing Jack on the cheek. "Don't take too long."  
  
:"I won't," Jack smiled before returning to the teenagers, who were pretending to gag and laughing. "Girls?"  
  
"Sorry!" they both giggled, standing in attention.  
  
****  
  
As Sally stumbled her way through the forest, two large figures watching her, camouflaged in the gnarled branches.  
  
"Did you see the way she acted around him?" said a female voice, obviously disgusted.  
  
"Yes, I did. What about it?" replied her male counterpart, sounding tired and submissive.  
  
"She acts like she doesn't have a mind of her own!" Woman spoke grudgingly. "She's just his little puppet!"  
  
"Lisa, I seriously doubt that. You know most women tod-"  
  
Lisa, identified earlier as Sally's gargoyle twin, grabbed Isaac's (Jack's gargoyle twin) neck in her right wing-claw and pulled his face to hers. "Most women today would not put up with that at all!" Lisa pivoted her neck to watch Sally again, still keeping a tight hold on her companion. "That guy must have some kind of spell on her."  
  
"I Seriously doubt that, Lisa," Isaac's raspy voice squeezed its way through his compressed throat.  
  
"Shut up, Isaac." Lisa responded to her friend's comment by smashing his skull into a tree branch and leaving him to nurse his bruised... uh... bone. She stalked through the trees, following Sally (who had broken into a speedwalk) as best she could. "I don't want my creatures helping a town ruled by some chauvinistic pig!"  
  
"Now, come on, Lis!" Isaac screamed, earning him another wing claw to his neck to shut him up. "I don't think we're helping a pig! That woman's just a little more submissive than you!"  
  
Lisa growled, letting go of Isaac's neck again. "Either way, she probably shouldn't stay hanging around him."  
  
"What?!" Isaac snapped.  
  
Sally had stopped to rest, giving Lisa a chance to stretch her wings. "We need to seperate her and knock some sense into her little twig-filled head!" She crouched down against the tree, ready to pounce.  
  
Isaac opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa was immediately in his face, her eyes glowing white and her voice eerily distorted. "Do you have a problem with that, Isaac?"  
  
Isaac whimpered and shook his head. "No, ma'am."  
  
"Good," Lisa snarled as her beaming eyes changed from white to green.  
  
***  
  
Sally hiked her way back to town, her cloth legs catching on the Clinger Tree roots. All of these new monsters; it was strange, but she felt nothing from them. They had no minds, no emotions, no nothing. She wasn't sure how she knew these things; she just did. It was-  
  
A shuffle in the branches above her made her pick up the pace of her already labored walking. She didn't want to meet up with one of those giant cats, just in case they were hostile.  
  
She kept on walking like this until she heard another noise; the awful sound of bone hitting a hard surface. She began to panic and forced herself into a "run", tripping and nearly falling, pressing her palms against tree trunks to stay erect.  
  
But, she couldn't keep this pace up forever. She stopped to rest, thinking to herself, "I don't know why I followed Jack into this forest. I hate forests."  
  
But she thought nothing else as she suddenly heard a disturbance behind her. She snapped her head around just in time to see a dark, shadowy figure leap on top of her and knock her out with one snap of its wings.  
  
DONE! Oo, things're gettin' good! 


	2. Labyrinth Castle

Drawings Can Be Dangerous  
  
Chap-ter two, hey, he said, Grab your things, I've come to take you home- Oops, sorry. Peter Gabriel's kind of hypnotizing. Next chapter... watch my empty silloutte, who close their eyes but still- Oops! Sorry!  
  
Jack lead the two teenagers through the tangle of trees that surrounded the Halloween world, following the white mushroom back to its hideout. Double F was close behind him, taking a few minutes to pull a twig out of her feathers. Charon was WAY behind, complaining about how her mom was going to KILL her when she came back home with a dirty uniform.  
  
"Are we there yet?!" Charon shouted, straining to keep up.  
  
"I'm not sure!" Jack answered.  
  
"I smell markers!" Double F shouted. "I smell my markers! I used them to color in a picture of Kairi I was drawing a couple of days ago!"  
  
Charon sniffed the air. "Hey, I do smell markers!"  
  
"Is that that awful smell?!" Jack coughed, stopping to regain his breath. "That's... (cough) horrible!"  
  
Charon took this time to catch up with the Pumpkin king and her best friend. She growled audibly, ripped off her shoes, and threw them into a tree. "I HATE SHOES!"  
  
"Look!" Jack pointed into the distance, making notice of a huge castle. It was flesh-toned (any flesh tone will do; it works with anything), squat looking, and decorated on the corners with four turrets. A deep, yet waterless moat encircled the castle, and two clay-red doors sealed the palace shut. "I remember my father talking about castles like that during the Black Death!"  
  
"Did you draw that?" Charon asked Double F.  
  
"Uh uh, you?"  
  
"No. Why would I ask if I had drawn it?"  
  
"Kish kish!" The White Mushroom bounded happily to the castle, forgetting that three people were following him. Jack chased the Mushroom silently, leaving the two teenagers to try to follow in his ittty bitty footsteps.  
  
***  
  
"Okay, we're in the castle," Charon, the proven cynic, began to speak. "Now what?"  
  
The hallways were plain and bare; eggshell wallpaper with wooden vanities sitting on the left side of every hallway opening. A chandelier hung on the ceiling about 30 feet in front of them and 200 feet above them. The hardwood floor was mostly covered by a long strip of red carpet. Behind them stood the gigantic set of doors, practically a drawbridge. Jack stood directly next to a large potted palm tree, big enough for the three of them to fit behind if they all squeezed together.  
  
Double F whistled, listening to it echo cheerfully. "This place creeps me out."  
  
"And not in a good way," Jack monotoned before stepping forward. "Either one of you keep track on the mushroom?"  
  
"Oops." Charon's tail drooped considerably.  
  
"Uh oh," Double F spoke in a sotto voice, her wing muscles tightening.  
  
Jack sighed. "This is going to be a long mission, I'm stuck with these idiots-"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Nothing, Charon, let's move on."  
  
***  
  
"This is weirder than weird," Double F spoke to herself as she poked her head around the corner of another hallway. It was identical to the first. "Everything looks the same."  
  
"It's all so... cliche', it's unbelievable," Charon laughed.  
  
They'd been walking in a straight line for what seemed like hours, deciding to go down a corridor once they found the end of the current hallway. Jack kept forward with a steely resolve, and was growing increasingly tired of Double F and Charon's constant complaining.  
  
"Charon, hush!" Jack whispered, pushing his hand over her mouth. "What was that?"  
  
Double F sniffed the air, while Charon simply looked around, her knees sore and her mind bored.  
  
"I can't smell anything," Double F responded.  
  
"Well, I know I hear something," Jack grimaced. "It's coming from behind us."  
  
As Jack turned to look behind him-  
  
His face met the door they walked through earlier.  
  
He yelped and jumped back, nearly tripping over the two girls.  
  
"It's the Labyrinth!" Charon screamed, pointing to the door and thinking of one of her favorite movies. "It's the Labyrinth!"  
  
"We've been walking for nothing!" Double F roared.  
  
"That's not possible!" Jack took a few steps to his right, only to run into the potted palm. "WOAH!"  
  
The large, clay-red doors began to open.  
  
"YI!" Double F squealed.  
  
"Everyone, hide!" Jack snatched the girls by their tails and pulled them behind the plant with him as three monsters walked through the door.... three familiar monsters....  
  
"WELCOME to my humble abode!" Lisa sneered and laughed uproariously. Isaac was still try to pull himself through the door, struggling to pull something through the drawbridge. "This's where- Isaac, is she even in the door yet?"  
  
"Grph... no," Isaac struggled, digging his feet into the red carpet. "She's... she's tough!"  
  
"Who is she?" Jack gasped, not taking his eyes off of Lisa.  
  
"Who Is 'she'?" Charon asked Double F, referring to the thing Isaac was trying to pull through the door.  
  
"Oh, come on!" Lisa smacked Isaac out of the way with her wing and brutally threw a cloth sack over her shoulder. Wait...  
  
"Sally!" It was now Double F and Charon's turn to cram their hands over Jack's mouth. It was Sally Lisa had slung over her shoulder, her wrists bound together and her mouth running at full speed.  
  
"You let me go!" Sally shouted as Lisa turned around, facing the never ending hall. "As soon as Jack realizes I'm gone, he'll hunt you down like a dog!"  
  
Lisa scoffed like a deadbeat teen and snapped, "Jack this, Jack that, that's all you ever talk about. Worry about yourself for once! Be your own woman!"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Lisa, I still don't think this is a good idea!" Isaac took Sally's side, unexpectedly. "She doesn't want to be here!"  
  
"Who asked you?" Lisa curtly hissed. "Now, come on, or Riku'll eat all of the Cheez Its."  
  
Isaac sighed and followed his former friend, ignoring the numerous cries from Sally.  
  
***  
  
"So, which one of you thought it would be funny if that gargoyle monster kidnapped Sally?!"  
  
Charon and Double F looked at eachother futilly. "Neither of us!"  
  
Jack growled, making sure that his pace didn't slow.  
  
Yes, they were running, struggling to keep up with Lisa and Isaac, who would often just disappear around a corner just as the tiny group came into eyeshot of them. They had been running aimlessly for a long time now, each of the loosing their breath at a faster and faster pace.  
  
"So, WHY has that thing kidnapped her?"  
  
"I dunno!" Double F gasped.  
  
"I wrote Lisa's character so she was a feminist, but she was never like this!" Charon began to explain.  
  
The Pumpkin King growled inwardly. "Oh, just wonderful! Huh- WOAH!" Jack slammed on the brakes as he turned the next corner, making the Charon crash into him. Double F missed him and fell onto the floor.  
  
It was a young girl, younger than Double F or Charon. She had short brown hair, a white shirt, and pink shorts. And ridiculously huge shoes. Her large blue eyes stared at the group until Double F called out her name.  
  
"Kairi?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Double F regained her feet and began to talk to Kairi, leaving Charon and Jack to collect their thoughts and begin to breathe again.  
  
"Did you see two gargoyles go by here?"  
  
Kairi asked, "Do you mean Lisa and Isaac?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Yes, just a few seconds ago." Kairi let her eyes drift towards the ceiling, her voice dreamy and unfocused. "They had a person with them. She was screaming a lot."  
  
"That was Sally!" Jack lunged forward and grabbed Kairi by the collar of her shirt. "Where did they go?!"  
  
"Through the door... in the wall." Kairi waved her hand, and a red wooden door fizzled into view, appearing in the wall.  
  
"Thank you!" Jack put Kairi back down and wiped his brow. "We can get Sally back now!"  
  
"Sally is supposed to stay here."  
  
Jack startled, then snarled in anger as Double F situated herself directly in front of Kairi. "Why?!" whistled the angry griffon girl.  
  
"Sally has to stay here, and learn to think for herself," Kairi breathed, looking Double F in the eyes now. "She has to stay."  
  
"Oh, puh-lease," Charon sighed. She reached for the door handle, Jack following close behind.  
  
"She has to stay!" Kairi shouted, her eyes flaring and her fists clenched. She took a fast, threatening step towards Jack and Charon.  
  
"HI-YA!" With one quick, masterful move, Double F had flipped Kairi over her shoulder and onto the ground. She made some fast hand movements, slammed her arms to her side, and bowed. "Hai!"  
  
"Alright, Double F!" Charon hollered.  
  
"Excellent, Gina!" Jack gasped, his fingers clenched together.  
  
"Double F!" Charon and Double F shouted together.  
  
"Yes, whichever, that was amazing!" squealed Jack, wringing his hands together, surveying the unconscious Kairi. "This could be useful later!"  
  
"Jack, the door!"  
  
Jack turned to see that the door Kairi apparated was starting to disappear. "YA! Hurry girls, run!"  
  
The three monsters on a mission each bolted through the quickly disappearing door, leaving it to slam quietly behind them.  
  
***  
  
"You see, Sal? This whole world is at your disposal, you just have to learn to control it yourself!"  
  
Lisa waited for Sally's response, didn't get one, sighed, and looked down upon her flock of minions.  
  
She, Isaac, the the aforementioned Sally all stood atop a giant pulpit in the middle of the northern wall of the main room of the castle, one which shot straight up from the floor. Thirty feet below them, the thousands of drawings that had sprung from the minds of the teens were dancing to Big Band music, happily chomping down food and sucking down Welch's grape juice. The ballroom was mostly a brown marble, and it smelled of peanuts, giving the impression that the place was made of tiger butter. Lisa took a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. In the left corner of the pulpit was a spinning white dust devil. As she watched it, a Shadow heartless jumped from the tornado and off of the pulpit to join the festivities.  
  
"Boring. Hey, Isaac, find any cool looking monsters in that book yet?"  
  
Isaac sat next to Sally, who was sitting on a box, crying her eyes out. He leafed through Charon's fairy book, reading dazedly and not hearing Lisa's question. Sally sobbed mournfully; he stretched a wing over her shoulders and patted her arm comfortingly.  
  
"Isaac!"  
  
"Whu?" Isaac jumped and dropped his book on Sally's knee, making her cry out in pain. Lisa picked up the book and saw the fairy enblazoned on the page.  
  
"Oo, Peg Powler! This looks interesting!"  
  
And with that, Lisa ripped the page out of the book and threw it into the dust devil.  
  
"Charon's going to be mad when you give her a book with no pages," Sally remarked snidely.  
  
"Charon won't be getting her book back, thank you," Lisa accentuated the words evilly, watching as a green skinned, snaggletoothed woman crawled from the tornado. "Ew. Go- go find Sora, lady, get yourself some clothes. Ech."  
  
Lisa turned once again to Sally. "Look, Sally, I like you. That is the reason that I have brought you here; to teach you that a woman does not need a MAN to feel complete, okay? So, just admit that Jack has been treating you like a dog, and-"  
  
"NO, NEVER!" Sally cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.  
  
"See, that's your problem!" Lisa yelled back, bending down to Sally's level. "That guys got you TOTALLY under his control! You need to think for yourself! Speak your mind!"  
  
"I'm speaking it NOW!"  
  
"Girls, girls, stop!" A black wing with skeleton fingers seperated the gals from eyesight. "Lisa, can I talk to you?"  
  
"Grrrr... fine, whatever!"  
  
Isaac stood up, put his arm and wing around Lisa's shoulders, and slowly led her away from the ragdoll. "Lisa, please, just send the girl home. She was fine back there; all you're doing is making her miserable."  
  
"Did I ask for your opinion?" Lisa snapped.  
  
Isaac pulled back his wing, backing away from Lisa. His face fell to the ground. "Well, no, but..."  
  
"Then why are you telling me what to do?" Lisa poked Isaac in the chest painfully. "I'm trying to teach this girl a lesson; if I start doing what you say, I'll be going back on my word!"  
  
"But, it's not an order, it's a sugge-"  
  
"Just be quiet and find more monsters, Isaac!" hissed Lisa through gritted teeth. She grappled his neck and began to strangle him. "Do I make myself clear?"  
  
"Yes, Lisa!"  
  
Lisa pushed Isaac away from her, paying no mind that he had fallen off of the pulpit entirely. "Now, Sal, you see how painless that was?"  
  
"For you," Sally argued back. "Isaac's in pain. I don't want to hurt anyone."  
  
"Well, baby, sometimes you have to," Lisa said as she placed her gigantic foot on Sally's lap, crushing Sal's legs under her weight. "Now, I'm going to hafta start hurting YOU if you don't start shaping up!"  
  
"Ow!" Sally flinched. "That hurts!"  
  
"Tell me that, when I let you go, you'll dump that King Guy and make your own life away from him!"  
  
"NO!"  
  
Lisa stepped off of Sally, shaking her head. "Poor little braindead dolly. You're gonna hafta be kept under constant conditioning. No stopping until you learn to think the right way; LIKE ME!"  
  
Oo, man, Lisa's mean! Good; it's all setup for the end. Just about two more chapters, and we'll soon be done. 


	3. Guards and Gargoyles Hinderers and Helpe...

Drawings Can Be Dangerous  
  
Chapter three, chapter three, are there author's notes? Yes, there are! Please wait while I find them, gotta- eurngh...  
  
(Audience: (munches popcorn and waits)  
  
Stupid... binder, gotta buy a better on- OKAY! Notes, notes, notes.... Lisa! Lisa the Gargoyle is named after my aunt! Isaac, Isaac was actually a second choice; his original name was something like Koebi, but I hated that, it sounded too... out there. SO, I gave him a nice, normal name! (Although I, personally, don't know anyone named Isaac.) Um... I mentioned fondue; I've never done fondue, but I wanna do fondue! Sounds fun, I'll get some chocolate and marshmallows and play Chubby Bunny... Like I mentioned in Chapter 2, the castle that Jack-tachi is trapped in IS based on that weirdo Disney movie, The Labyrinth. Cool movie. So 80's, I love it! Um... that's it, I guess. Bye.  
  
****  
  
It was not the same hallway. Instead of the clearly lit, pastel hallway that they group had been traipsing through for an eternity, it was a dark, cluttered corridor scattered with broken glass and melted candles. Bare brass stubs which were previously chandeliers jutted out of the ceiling.  
  
Jack gulped uncertainedly, Double F and Charon huddling behind him. "What happened here?"  
  
"Sally must've Really put up a fight," Charon tried to joke.  
  
"I hope she's alright," Jack spoke to himself, taking a few fearful steps forward. Double F followed, Charon taking her usual spot at the back.  
  
***  
  
As Charon peeked around the corner, she started to snicker. She squeezed her lips together and tried hard not to laugh.  
  
"What is it?" Double F asked.  
  
"Yes, what?" Jack repeated.  
  
"I... I was in English class (gr-her-her!) And- and we were learning about mythology, and I started drawing Medusa (ha ha ha!)"  
  
"Medusa!" Jack cried out.  
  
"Yeah, but-" Charon began to loose control. "But- but I only drew her head!"  
  
"And?" Jack looked around the corner as well. As soon as he did, he started to laugh. Double F thought about looking around the corner too, but Medusa passed by the hallway opening anyway. Or, rather...  
  
Her head bounced by. As the Medusa head bounced, she made little "Uh uh uh uh" sounds with each impact. She made her way slowly across the trashed floor until she was out of the three's eyeshot. Then-  
  
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"  
  
"HEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHA!"  
  
"BAGAHAHA! NO WAY, No way, a hahahaha!"  
  
"It's just a little... it's hardly bigger than Barrel!" Jack pounded on the wall in ecstasy, unable to hold in his laughter.  
  
"It's just like the things from Spirited Away!" Double F remembered, her laughter waning.  
  
Charon tucked her arms in, like a kangaroo. "Yeah, she even did the 'Poit poit poit!"  
  
And the three erupted into gales of laughter once again, not noticing that Medusa had heard them and was immediately at their feet. As they stopped laughing, their eyes fell upon her actually face. They immediately stopped laughing and began running in the opposite direction. They ducked behind a fallen bookcase and tried to recover.  
  
"I didn't draw her like that!" Charon shreeked.  
  
"Be quiet, she might here you!" Jack scolded.  
  
Charon nodded, assumed the fetal position, and began talking to herself. "This's like everyone one of my nightmares... I'm always hiding from something like her..."  
  
"I know Charon's drawings; they're not that detailed," Double F said between breathes. "Whatever brought these things to life must've filled in all the stuff we didn't!"  
  
"This's all very confusing!" Jack sighed, putting his hand on the ground and resting his weight. Something very sharp poked into the space between his finger bones, hurting him emmensely. "YEOWCH! What the-?"  
  
"My tail!" Double F grabbed her tail and saw, in shock, that the fur on the tip of her tail had been turned to stone! Every individual strand of fur had been seperately frozen, so she basically had a pincushion attacked to her back end. "Oh no!"  
  
"Double F!" Charon went to stand up, but Jack pushed her back down.  
  
"Charon, your hair!" Jack noticed. "It's stone as well!"  
  
"What?!" Charon stroked her ponytail and felt the razor-sharp pinpoints at the ends of her hair. "GAH! MOM'S GOING TO KILL ME!"  
  
"SHUT UP!" Double F and Jack held Charon down.  
  
"Uh uh uh!"  
  
"Medusa's coming this way!" Jack rubbed his head in thought. "How do we get rid of her?!"  
  
"I saw this episode of Jonny Quest where Jonny showed Medusa her reflection and she turned to stone," Charon suggested.  
  
"I actually think that might work!" Jack gasped. "I just need to find something that causes a reflection!"  
  
"There's broken glass all over the place!" Double F said happily.  
  
"Yes!" Jack pulled his fist down in excitement. "Now, how can we wrangle Medusa without being turned to stone?"  
  
Charon and Double F pushed Jack out into the hallway. "You've got no eyes! You go!"  
  
Jack saw Medusa's head bouncing down the hallway, nearly laughing again at how comical it was. Carefully avoiding her face, Jack lept behind Medusa and pushed her nose-first into the carpet.  
  
"Okay, now!"  
  
Double F and Charon immediately jumped up and began collecting glass and putting the pieces together, making a quick mirror. As the mirror was laid out on the floor, Jack picked up Medusa and held her over the glass. Medusa shrieked and was turned into stone near immediately. Jack dropped her, breaking her into five pieces.  
  
"There!" Jack brushed his hands calmly.  
  
***  
  
"Riku, stop eating the Cheezits, you numbskull!" Lisa shouted before turning to Sally. "Okay, you see how I handled that? Short and firm, with a touch of insults because that's the only thing that gets through a boy's head."  
  
"Is she always this mean?" Sally asked Isaac. Isaac was still sitting next to Sally, one wing stretched sympathetically over her shoulder.  
  
"Not always," Isaac began to remember. "She actually used to be quite polite. I'm not sure what happened-"  
  
"Isaac! No conferring with the prisoner!" Lisa growled, snapping him sharply across his cheekbone. "Now, Sally, knowing Riku, he'll start eating the Cheezits again soon. I want you to look over the edge and tell him to stop. Oh, there he is now!"  
  
Lisa grabbed Sally her wrist shackles and pushed her to the edge. Sally saw a tall, blue haired boy (you gotta have blue hair if you're from Japan) eating the yummy cheese crackers from the buffet table. Apparently, he was close to eating all of them, and if he didn't stop, he'd probably scarf them all down before anyone else got any.  
  
Sally mustered her strength and yelped, "Excuse me, Riku?"  
  
Riku looked up from the Cheezits, surprised. "Um... yeah?"  
  
"Could you please leave some crackers for the other guests?"  
  
Riku looked around and saw some soldier Heartless standing around him, holding plates. "Oh, sorry! Sure thing!"  
  
"Thank you!" Sally smiled. "It's very appreciate-"  
  
"NO NO NO!"  
  
Lisa pulled Sally back roughly. "I told you, the only way to get through a boy's head is through insults! Now, yell at him like you're supposed to!"  
  
"But nobody likes being insulted," Sally mumbled.  
  
"PRECISELY!" Lisa roared, her eyes turning white. "Geez, you nimrod, pay attention!"  
  
Lisa slammed Sally back down onto her box, and Isaac softly caught her in his arms.  
  
"Sally," Isaac whispered into her ear. "Take my advice; just do whatever she says. Don't put up a fight."  
  
"But, the other people don't deserve to be yelled at," Sally shook her head.  
  
"I know that just as much as you do," Isaac closed his eyes and shook his head. "But I've gotten three broken bones just this morning from disagreeing with her. You don't have to mean what you say, just say it."  
  
Sally sighed as Isaac patted her shoulder again.  
  
***  
  
A Behemoth squeezed his way through the large corridor, his tusks scraping against the walls. His huge muscles rippled with every step he took, with his long front legs doing more work than his smaller back ones. His normally pink-and-purple skin was smudged black with dirt and grime. His horn, however, was sharp, shiny and polished.  
  
As his shoulder accidently popped into a hallway opening, Jack pushed the girls out of the way. "The guarding's heavier; we must be getting close to where Sally is being kept."  
  
"Oh man, the Behemoth's bigger than I thought," Double F gasped. "And it's only weak spot is its horn; how are we supposed to hit it?"  
  
"Hey, it's a drawing! Maybe I can find a pencil and erase it!" Charon brainstormed. She began checking her pockets for pencils.  
  
"Its only weak spot is that little bitty horn on its forehead?" Jack asked.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"And to get to it, we have to get past two stomping hooves, a gaping mouth, and two gigantic tusks?"  
  
"Um... it does magic spells, too."  
  
Jack's shoulder sagged defeatedly. "Wonderful."  
  
"No way!"  
  
Charon startled everyone by pulling a piece of wood out of one of her pockets. It looked like a thick piece of wooden tubing, possibly bamboo. It was about the height of small computer monitor, and the width of a walnut. "No way! I thought I left this at home!"  
  
"What is it?" Jack asked.  
  
"That's not what I think it is, is it?" Double F tapped the wooden tube.  
  
"Oh yeah!" Charon was suddenly overcome with bravery and jumped into the hallway. "This's my secret weapon! BEHEMOTH!"  
  
The Behemoth's head jerked upward, but he could not look behind himself; the hallway was too cramped. He responded by crawling forward, away from Charon.  
  
"Hey!" Charon yelped. "HEY! COME BACK!"  
  
The sabercat clenched her fist and roared angrily, the tone fluctuating and, at times, forming words.  
  
"What's she doing?" Jack asked.  
  
"That's her home language," Double F explained. "English is her second language; this's the language that her and her Nai Nai speak."  
  
"Nai Nai?"  
  
"It's her grandmother on her mom's side."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Jack yelped in surprise and stumbled back suddenly, Double F snapped her hands around his arm. The hallways around them began to grow in size, the floor vibrating turbulently. By the time it stopped, they had either shrunk 2 feet or the hallway had grown 30.  
  
"We didn't just go back into your world, did we?" Jack asked, remembering when he had accidentally left Halloween Town for the teen's world.  
  
"No, 'cause we'd be bigger," Charon answered. The hallway began to shake again, but this time there was a distinct rhythm.  
  
Baddadumbaddadumbaddadumbaddadum...  
  
"AH!" Charon twirled the wooden tube in her palm, and with a dim flash of light, it transformed into a scythe! It was smaller than her (from her head to her knees) with a black, aged blade of iron. The curve of the blade was meager; it was almost a straight line.  
  
As the Behemoth thundered toward her, Charon lept into the air and sliced of the tip of its horn! She rolled off of his back and onto hers while Behemoth roared in pain and skidded to a stop.  
  
"HA-HA HA-HA!" the sabercat laughed as Behemoth slowly turned. As he galloped towards her again, she kept her ground and, as he passed over her, chopped off the rest of the horn, making the Behemoth fizzle into oblivion.  
  
And with that, Charon collasped into an exhausted faint.  
  
***  
  
"Shiro! I need you to go get more Ritz crackers! Well- Don't sass me! I don't care if Kurai needs you! I need more Ritz crackers! Don't Sass Me! Hurry up!"  
  
Lisa huffed and slammed herself down on Sally's left side, her right side being occupied faithfully by Isaac, who had picked up the fairy book once again. She growled, "Stupid idiot; thinking she needs to be there for Kurai all the time."  
  
Lisa turned to Sally. "You, that's what you where trying to do; you were trying to validate yourself through a relationship. You need to get away from that."  
  
"Wha-?" Sally sat in amazement with her mouth open for a nanosecond before flying into a fit. "I am not trying to 'validate' myself! I'm in love!"  
  
"A HA!" Lisa laughed uproariously, slapping her knees. "That's- that's great! I haven't heard that one in a long time!" She shoved Sally playfully, pushing her into Isaac's ribs. "Love is just a pointless subject matter for fairy tales! It's just like dragons, or Big Foot, or... fairies!" Lisa reached over and pulled the fairy book out of Isaac's hands, ruding thowing it into the paper tornado. "Fun to read about, but it doesn't exist."  
  
Sally scoffed in resentment and looked to Isaac for relief. Isaac was hanging his head very low, his shoulders shaking and his breathing very quiet.... he was crying?  
  
"Isaac?" Sally leaned in closer to him. "Isaac, are you okay?"  
  
"We were.... she.... it's hard to say," Isaac tried to speak through a cracking, weepy voice. "My throat's tight.... I need to go for a walk."  
  
Lisa pulled hurriedly shoved Isaac off of the pulpit. "And bring Ritz crackers!"  
  
***  
  
Jack found him behind an air conditioning vent located on the wall of the ballroom. Past him walked a thousand feet, and just barely visible past them was a large, orange raised platform.  
  
"I think we took a wrong turn somewhere," Jack shrugged. "Is Charon waking up yet?"  
  
"Sorta," Double F fanned her friend softly with her wing. Charon was sitting limply on the floor, her breathing loud and labored. Her scythe was sitting haphazardly in her lap, the wood scorched black.  
  
"We have to keep going. I don't see Sally anywhere."  
  
"She... might be... moving...." Charon gasped.  
  
"That's right! She could be walking around, or the rooms could be changing around and stuff." Double F lifted Charon up by her shoulder. "This place is weird like that."  
  
"Well, we can't just sit and wait for Sally to come to us," Jack took Charon off of Double F's shoulder and carried her in his arms. "We have to keep going. Get her scythe."  
  
"Okay." Double F shook the polearm, trying to make it shrink, but failed and dropped it on her foot. "OW!"  
  
***  
  
The building was starting to become more of the pastel cheese-colors that greeted the group of 3. One particular large room looked like a very dingy gray hallway. One thing that set this room apart from the hallway was the fact that a large, three headed dog occupied the bulk of the room. In the southeast corner, there was a tiny counter, like the snack bar at the movies.  
  
And behind it was a sabercat, an anthro-griffin, and a skeleton. A very mad skeleton.  
  
"Alright, let me guess," Jack growled. "Charon, English class, mythology."  
  
"Well, both of us, actually," Double F pointed one finger to the ceiling. "Cerberus is one of the bosses in-"  
  
"Kingdom Hearts," Jack spoke with her. He continued from that statement while Double F stayed quiet. "You know, I'm learning more than I ever wanted to know about that place from you."  
  
"Is that a good thing or bad?" the griffon-girl asked.  
  
"Depends on whether we get out of her alive," the Pumpkin King threatened.  
  
A large, black dog head sniffed past their corner, then withdrew itself.  
  
"Charon, take a look around. What's going on?"  
  
"Look!" Charon pointed. She was back on her feet now, but her throat was sore and dry. Her words were wheezy.  
  
Jack looked up from the glass booth. "It's that gargoyle we saw with Sally!" Jack ducked behind the counter again. "Girls, quickly!"  
  
"Okay!" The cat and the cat/bird hid alongside Jack, waiting for Isaac to pass through.  
  
Isaac's feet clanked together, his tail dragged behind him, and his eye sockets were wet and foggy. He admitted that he was not completely sure of where he was going, nor did he care. His thoughts were clamoured with Lisa's words. Useless subject matter for fairy tales, she called love... It doesn't exist, she said.  
  
"But I love her," he began to think. "And she... she used to love me."  
  
With a jolt of fear and adrenaline, Isaac was suddenly yanked off of his feet and behind the counter with the group of three. Jack held his mouth shut while the girls held down his wings. Jack looked to his twin with a snarl of pure loathing, matched humourously by a squirming, fearful, big- eyed ping-pong ball before him. The Pumpkin King dug his fingers into Isaac's face.  
  
"Where is Sally?"  
  
"Sallaifo'orwifisa."  
  
Jack growled and threw Isaac down on the floor, forgetting that he had covered the gargoyle's mouth. Isaac shook his head to recover, and somewhere in that white little dome of his, a light went off.  
  
"Wait, Sally? The ragdoll woman!" Isaac yelped. He began to stand up, but Double F roughly and mercilessly shoved him down. "I can bring you to her!"  
  
"Wait, really?" Charon asked, her voice still dry.  
  
"As in, out of free will?" Double F scratched her head. "We thought you'd, like, put up a fight or something."  
  
"Oh heavens no!" Isaac smiled. "I want to help her just as much as you do. Moreso, now that I think about it."  
  
"You'll take us to Sally?" Jack gasped. "You won't put up a fight or anything?"  
  
"No, sir, Your Majesty," Isaac bowed. "Just tell your friends to let me go and I'll take you to her."  
  
Alright! We're going somewhere! This was supposed to be the last chapter, but there's still more plot development and character development to go. I like development! 


	4. Big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, ...

Drawings Can Be Dangerous, Chapter 4  
  
So, Isaac's joined up with Jack and the teens, and they're on their way to get Sally back! Last chapter!  
  
Cerberus trotted happily towards the ballroom, the four people on his back barely registering on his thick skin. Jack spoke to Isaac, hoping on some insight as to how to get Sally back to town.  
  
"When did Lisa start acting like this?" The Pumpkin King asked his twin.  
  
"Not too long ago. We were just talking to eachother back home, and then, we were here." Isaac was obviously speaking of when he and Lisa were nothing but drawings, so Jack paid extra attention. "As soon as Lisa stepped out that little tornado thing, it was do this, do that, go kidnap her-"  
  
"Wait! Wait, wait! Back up a minute!" Jack waved his hand. "What tornado?"  
  
"Actually, it's more of a dust devil," Isaac stated.  
  
"That's not the point! Tell me more about it!"  
  
"Oh!" Isaac held his hand to his lips in surprise, and began to explain. "It's a little dust devil, and it's um... it's filled with shreds of paper."  
  
Jack's eyebrow rose in confusion. "O...kay."  
  
"And..... um... you throw in pictures, and whatever's on the picture comes out of the tornado."  
  
"Is that where all of these things came from?" Jack asked while patting Cerberus's back.  
  
"Actually, there's only one of these things," Isaac pointed out.  
  
"That's not what I meant!" Jack slammed his palm against his forehead. "I meant the monsters in general!"  
  
"Oh, yes, right!" Isaac smiled. A sudden lurch signaled that Cerberus had stopped walking.  
  
***  
  
"Stop, look, and listen, baby! That's my philosophy!" Lisa turned to her captive. "Come on, Sally, sing Elvis with me!"  
  
"I don't want to sing," Sally huffed. She was in a very bad mood after sitting on a rough, wooden box for hours; both of her legs were asleep, her shoulders were sore from her arms being tied, and she was ready to eat something.  
  
"Sally, look, I'm TRYING to help you build yourself into a better woman here, but you're not paying attention! What's your problem?"  
  
"I am my own woman, Lisa," Sally shot her a horrible look. "I'm in love. Being in love doesn't make you any less of a person."  
  
"Yeah, you and every other teenager in the world think that, and you know how stupid teenagers are," Lisa growled, her wings tensing and her pupils disappearing.  
  
"LISA!"  
  
"Isaac?!" Lisa was surprised to see her former partner climbing frantically onto the pulpit, breathing deeply and not carrying any Ritz crackers. "Where's the snacks?"  
  
"Lisa, you know the skeleton man that Sally keeps talking about?" he breathing, holding his weight on his knees. Both Sally and Lisa's muscles tensed in anticipation.  
  
"Yeah, the bonehead. What about him?" Lisa hissed.  
  
"He's in the castle!"  
  
Sally felt her insides turning flips and her trust for Isaac crumbling. Lisa, however, was the exactly opposite. She lunged forward, clutching Isaac by his collar and speaking directly into his face. An evil smile split her face in half. "Where is he?"  
  
"That way!" Isaac pointed to the main doorway.  
  
"Come on, men!" Lisa lept down onto the ground and screamed the endless herd of monsters and Heartless into a frenzy. They rushed out of the main door, cries of "Slay Jack!" and "Kill the Pumpkin King!" echoing through the hallways.  
  
Sally turned to Isaac, tears welling in her eyes. "How... could you?"  
  
"Ssshh!" Isaac laughed, pressing his wing claws over her mouth. "Be quiet or Lisa'll come back! Look this way!"  
  
Isaac pulled Sally onto her feet and led her to the right side of the pulpit. Standing at the base were-  
  
"JACK!"  
  
Jack, Double F, and Charon were all looking up at her from the floor. Each were smiling, Jack's being the largest. Double F waved cheerfully; Charon had a round finger over her cleft lips.  
  
"You didn't rat him out!" Sally gasped in happiness. Isaac stood behind her, trying to take off her arm shackles.  
  
" I know... ergh... I want you to get- ugh- out of here as- euh- much as he does. ANGH!" He dropped the shackles hopelessly. "Oh, just forget it and hold onto me."  
  
Isaac held onto Sally tightly and dropped to the floor, his wings slowing his fall. Jack took Sally into his arms and hugged her tightly. Charon and Double F spent their time thanking Isaac.  
  
"THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH, ISAAC!" Double F laughed. "I dunno how we would've gotten her down-"  
  
Charon rubbed her hands together. "I can't believe Lisa was so easily duped! I made her smarter than that, or I thought I did-"  
  
"Thanks again!" said Double F.  
  
"Yeah, thanks."  
  
A jolt of fear went through the bunch like a gunshot. Standing there was Lisa, all of the monsters, Heartless, and etc. creatures waiting behind her for the chance to attack. Lisa rested, hands on her hips, her tail waving leisurely behind her, her eyes an evil green color. "I am not so easily duped, dear creator." She clicked her tongue, took a callous glance at her fingernails, and continued. "I believe it is you who is the duped one right now."  
  
Jack stepped forward and faced the gargoyle version of his closest friend. "Alright, listen to me. We don't want to fight anyone; I just want to leave and bring Sally back home."  
  
Charon raised her finger. "And u-"  
  
"Shut up!" Double F forcibly whispered, jabbing her cat friend in the ribs.  
  
"Heh!" Lisa laughed. "Check this out, Sally! Not only is your 'boyfriend' controlling, but he's also a stalker!"  
  
Jack stepped back in shock, his mouth turning into an "o" of surprise. Sally shouted, her arms tiring in their restraints, "THAT'S NOT TRUE!"  
  
"Uh, I'm surrounded by idiots," Lisa growled. He finally sighed and said, "Fine. I'm just gonna hafta rip all of your heads off, then."  
  
But just as Soon as Lisa went to step forward on her giant, clawed foot, Isaac jumped in front of the group and spread his wings as far as they would go; protecting them.  
  
And Lisa was surprised.  
  
"Isaac, wha- What are you doing?"  
  
Isaac stepped backwards, his breathing erratic. He whispered to Jack. "Be prepared to defend yourself."  
  
Charon whimpered and unsheathed her scythe. Double F's muscles tensed. Jack wrapped and arm around Sally and refused to let go.  
  
"Fine, then, Isaac. Hate to do this to you, but, an obstacle's an obstacle." Lisa took a deep breath-  
  
AND ATTACKED THEM! The monsters of the drawpad followed her faithfully, bellowing in fury as they charged into battle. Isaac was immediately knocked down by Lisa's weight, while about a dozens monsters swarmed the Pumpkin King and his companions. One particularly large blank lion caught Sally on his back and threw her back onto the pulpit. She shoved herself up with her elbows to watch the carnage below. Jack was nimbly jumping out of the way of many attacks, although quite a large number of Heartless were after him. Charon had long ago lost her scythe and fallen to the ground, pinned down by a black dragon. Double F was starting to falter, her wrists caught and tangled in the hair of a fairy knight.  
  
"Oh no!" she moaned. "JACK! Oh, how are we going to get out of this?"  
  
"With-"  
  
"Our-"  
  
"Help!"  
  
Sally turned her head sharply, and there behind her was Lock, Shock, and Barrel! "Boys! How did you get here?"  
  
"We snuck inside one of the three headed dog's mouthes!" Shock laughed.  
  
"It was fun!" Barrel giggled.  
  
"We're here to bust you out!" Lock growled. His pulled a piece of wire out from under his lip and began working at Sally's shackles.  
  
"How long have you been here? Did you follow Jack and the girls?" Sally asked as Lock worked at the chains.  
  
"You didn't think we were gonna let you go on an adventure by yourself, did you?" Lock sneered.  
  
"We had to hike through tons of weeds and junk to get here because our bathtub got busted," Shock complained as she pulled off her hat and dumped out a bundle of weeds.  
  
"You're free!" Lock cheered in happiness. Sally jerked her arms forward, and felt the feeling come back into her shoulders almost immediately.  
  
"WWOOOAAAAARR!"  
  
The Terrible Trio was knocked off the pulpit by a runaway fairy knight, leaving Sally alone with a bunch of grasses and plants and the dust devil.  
  
But she saw something. One weed looked a bit like a dead thistle; the same type of plant that triggered her premonition that fateful year. She gasped and clutched it in her hands, praying to herself.  
  
"Oh please, oh please, if I ever needed a premonition, I need it now. Are we going to come out of this battle alive?"  
  
The plant slowly wiggled and writhed its way into a recognizable form... Jack's head, neck, and torso. The minituature half-Jack looked at Sally with a vacous smile.  
  
"Jack? Is he-?" Sally crawled to the edge to find her closest friend.  
  
Jack had just dodged a powerswipe from a black lioness when Lisa caught him by the collar. She stared at him with her empty, glowing eyes. "You've caused me enough trouble!"  
  
She slammed the Pumpkin King against the wall using her wing! The ballroom echoed with the resounding THUD of bone hitting marble, and the Pumpkin King's cry of pain.  
  
"JACK, NO!" Sally screamed. A burning sensation met her fingers; she looked downwards and saw her premonition flower was on fire! She yelped again and tossed it away, and it fell into the dust devil!  
  
Almost immediately, a Behemoth heartless cried out in pain as his body went two-dimensional and a hole of fire burned through his chest. More and more of the creatures soon fell to the same fate, screeching in agony and clutching their chest, trying to withhold the fire.  
  
"JACK!" Sally cried out again, only to feel the ground below her give way! She collasped to the floor, shaken but still whole. She galloped into the fray, straining her eyes and avoiding the fire. "JACK!"  
  
Two boned hands grabbed her shoulders, but they weren't Jack's; they were Isaac's. He growled into her ear. "We have to get out of here! Hurry!"  
  
Sally stumbled forward, Isaac's hands still pushing against her back. Her stopped her with a firm "Wait here" and left again, leaving her standing by the main doors. She watched as Riku fell into a firey fate before her, crumbling and folding like a leaf in a bonfire.  
  
"Sally, you're alive!"  
  
Sally greeted Jack with open arms and waiting tears. "It was me who was worried about you, Jack!"  
  
Double F gave Sally's arm a fearful tug before running away from the fire and into the hallway.  
  
"Come on, Sally! No time for fluffy stuff!"  
  
Charon streaked past, her scythe crammed into her pocket. "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"  
  
***  
  
The hallways around them were destroying themselves, falling apart in chunks and then bursting into flames. Isaac alone had nothing of him aflame, which was odd, given everyone was either dead or still burning.  
  
"How much longer now?!" Double F hollered.  
  
"Not much farther!" answered Isaac, who was leading them. "About 5 more minutes!"  
  
As he went to round a sharp turn, the wall before him burst into flames and collasped! He stopped sharply, the four people behind him screaming in shock.  
  
"Make that 2 minutes," he mumbled to himself. He turned his head backwards. "HURRY! Through the wall!"  
  
***  
  
"There's the door!" Charon gasped.  
  
"We're almost out of here!" Jack said to Sally, clutching her hand in his.  
  
"NO YOU'RE NOT!"  
  
Lisa, her legs cut and bleeding (as apposed to ripped and torn), was standing in front of the group, her wings stretched to their breaking point, blocking their path to the outside. The ceiling began to flake apart and fall to the ground in chunks, scaring the teens and catching Sally's dress, catching it on fire. Isaac reacted on instinct and snapped his wings outward as well, blocking them from her view.  
  
It was a staredown. Two monsters, perhaps not equally matched in size or skill, placed in a life or death situation... One had a reputation to protect... one a group of friends.... who would survive?  
  
"I'm going to attack Lisa," Isaac whispered to Jack. "You take Sally and the kids and run."  
  
"She'll kill you!" Jack snapped.  
  
"We're both going to die to the flames anyway," Isaac calmly spoke, tears welling in the bottom of his sockets. He took a breath and continued. "You go."  
  
Jack nodded, gave Isaac a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and stepped back.  
  
With a deafening roar, Isaac lunged forward and caught Lisa by the throat, running her into the ground. Jack grabbed Sally's hand and ran out of the mansion, Double F and Charon following quickly.  
  
***  
  
"And I spent forever trying to get the wings right on that wyvern heartless," Double F sighed to Charon.  
  
"Mom's gonna kill me when I come home without the fairy book!" Charon fell to the ground in defeat. Charon turned to eyes to the castle in the distantance, flinching as ashes flew into her eyes. "Still wish I knew where that castle came from."  
  
Jack kept his arm over Sally's shoulder, whispering comforting words into her ears. She breathed slowly and calmly, still fearing that Lisa was alive somewhere in that foresaken place.  
  
Double scratched her furry legs furiously. "There's ashes in my fur... won't... get out!"  
  
"We should head back to town," Sally finally mentioned. "The sun's coming up."  
  
"Yes, let's go," Jack led Sally away, letting the girls follow him at their own pace. He began to walk away without worry until-  
  
"AH! My scythe! I must've dropped it!"  
  
"Oh, good grief," Jack groaned, holding his head in his hands.  
  
"Be patient with them, Jack," Sally coaxed.  
  
"It's not 'them' I have a problem with, it's 'she'," Jack turned on his heel and sped-walked after Charon, who was running painfully slowly back to the castle remains.  
  
***  
  
"Scythe!" Charon called out for her favorite weapon, not caring if it couldn't hear her. "Scythe, hello!"  
  
"Where is it?" Double F brushed through some ashes. "It should be sticking out like a sore thumb- ITCHY fur!"  
  
Double F slapped the ashes out of her fur, and they slowly fell to the ground. Jack and Sally stumbled to the two girls, there tiny feet falling into the ash. Jack growled defiantly, "Have you found it yet?!"  
  
"No," Charon whined. "Maybe I dropped it somewhere else."  
  
"Oh, come ON!" Jack roared, scaring all within a three mile radius. "Just leave it here and we'll find it when all the dust blows away!"  
  
"I'm sleepy!" Sally growled as well. "I would like to go home!"  
  
"Okay, okay!" Charon pushed herself into a standing position and stomped past Jack and Sally. "But you'll have to explain this all to Mom-AIYA!"  
  
A huge shadow fell over the group; a black dragon, showing its fangs and bearing its claws, was just about to tackle them and eat them! In about as much time as it took the group to notice it, another dark figure swiped the dragon with a strong arm and pushed it off course. It fell on its side and shuffled away.  
  
IT WAS LISA WHO KNOCKED IT AWAY!  
  
She had thrown the terrible lizard with her wing, and was shouting as it walked away, "Don't attack them, Perseus, they're on our side now!"  
  
As Lisa looked at the familiar quartet, the evil radiance that once possessed her body had left her. She smiled meekly, looking more like Sally by the second, and giggled airily.  
  
***  
  
"Oh, and about the whole attacking thing, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Oh, and the moron and idiot lines, I didn't mean those either; I was, like, possessed, or something, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."  
  
"For the last TIME, Lisa!" Jack moaned. "We forgive you!"  
  
Lisa whimpered, tucking her tail under her legs. "I'm sorry! It's just... I feel terrible about the whole thing, I mean..."  
  
And again Lisa went into one of her ramblings. She had been like this for a while- oh, I almost forgot, hang on-  
  
It was a grand march back home, the Holiday Tree Woods alive with living drawings, either bouncing along the ground, through the air, or in the trees. Jack watched over his shoulder with certain apprehension; Cerberus was behind him, looking very very hungry. Sally was currently talking to the non-stop apologizer, Lisa. Charon and Double F were getting a free ride of a Behemoth with Sora and Riku.  
  
"It was like some kind of voice was in my head, telling me what to do!" Lisa cried, holding her head shamefully.  
  
"A voice? What kind of voice?" Sally asked.  
  
"Uh... I couldn't tell, but it had a name!" Lisa rubbed her chin with a wing claw. "It was something... something with a 'P'..."  
  
Charon suddenly ran inbetween the two women, chasing after a particularly ugly looking thing with a pig's head, a man's body, and feet shaped like bricks. "Come back, Jimmy! Jimmy Squarefoot, you need to go back in my book!"  
  
Lisa suddenly got an idea. "Hey, you there, cat looking thing!"  
  
Charon stopped abruptly and turned around. "Yeah, Sal- I mean, Lisa?"  
  
"Do any of the drawings you and the sphinx made start with a 'P'?"  
  
"The sphinx?" Charon was confused once again. "The sphinx, I dunno a sphinx.... DOUBLE F!"  
  
"Yeah?" came a voice from the back of the line.  
  
"Oh, darn it, I didn't mean to say it that loud," the sabercat whispered. "HEY, DOUBLE F, DO ANY OF YOUR DRAWINGS START WITH A 'P'?"  
  
A long silence, and then "I DUNNO!"  
  
Jack rubbed his forehead. "This is stupid."  
  
"WAIT, CHARON, LISA'S OTHER NAME! IT WAS SOMETHING WITH A 'P'!"  
  
"Oh yeah!" Charon poked Lisa in the chest. "Lisa, you're other name! It was Persephone (per-SEF-fone-y)! That's wh-"  
  
"DAAEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"  
  
A swirling blue light shot out of Lisa's forehead, and there materialized-  
  
A thin, gangly man in jester's clothes with purple skin and green eyes. "You ruined it! You all ruined everything!"  
  
"WAH!" Charon jumped behind Lisa in fear.  
  
"I would've had a great empire, a kingdom, but you!" The jester pointed at Jack specifically. "You ruined everything!"  
  
"I what?" The Pumpkin King marched to the floating, tiny man's eye level. "Now you listen here, I don't know who you are or where you're from, but you put Sally in danger, and for that, you should be put in jail!"  
  
"No jail can hold me!" The jester disappeared again, singing in a spritely voice. "No jail cell can hold me, for I am the man named Persephone!"  
  
Jack stared at the spot where the man named Persephone once was, bewildered. "This has been a very strange chapter- I mean day." Jack stratched his skull. "Why on earth did I say chapter?"  
  
Charon giggled.  
  
***  
  
Charon and Double F had gone home, having somehow recovered their lost papers and books without trouble (Double F had written them back into existance with a spare piece of parchment and a quill pen). The drawing monsters were making a temporary home in Halloween Town, but Lisa announced (with a strength and power in her voice that could rival Jack Skellington's) that they would soon be moving to the forest with the Jersey Devil and his odd little town of monsters. It was odd though; Isaac, Lock, Shock, and Barrel had never returned. A few of the town monsters had gone out as lookouts to find them, but they were lost; and Jack and Sally weren't the only ones worried.  
  
Lisa, who was sitting on the stone gate on the edge of town, heard the Harlequin demon moan, "I bet Cronus 2 Snickers bars and a peanut butter pumpkin that he wouldn't finish by the end of the week; where are those children when you need them?"  
  
Lisa sighed and looked to the horizon.  
  
"Is something wrong?"  
  
Lisa looked behind her to see a concerned-looking Pumpkin King, one eyebrow ridge raised comically above the other one.  
  
She sighed again, looked away from the elegant skeleton, and whispered, "I miss Isaac."  
  
"Oh, you do?"  
  
"He was like.... me and him were close, you know?" Lisa still wouldn't look at Jack. "And I said all those horrible things to him when I was possessed, and now he's probably dead under the castle rubble.... and he died thinking that I hated him."  
  
"Oh, Lisa... I went though the same thing almost." Jack rested his elbows on the gate. Lisa looked at him fiercely.  
  
"With who?" she demanded.  
  
"My father," Jack remembered. "Me and him would get into awful fights, not often, mind you; but still enough to make me think that he didn't like me as much as Mother said he did."  
  
"Uh... huh."  
  
"But, I'd always remember; if he was a true father to his child (me), he would love me no matter what he did or I did or Mother did. It didn't matter."  
  
Lisa looked away as Jack finished. "Because he loved us just the same."  
  
"That's so sweet and touching and insightful," Lisa sniffed. "I hate it. It sounds like something you'd find on the Lifetime Network, EUGH! I hate that channel!"  
  
"Excuse me?" Jack raised his eyebrow again.  
  
"Just making myself feel better," Lisa giggled. He suddenly tensed, pushing back her hair to reveal a pointed ear. "What the- do you hear that?"  
  
Jack cupped a hand to the side of his skull, and he did hear something...  
  
"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goes! Oh, I know a song..."  
  
"It sounds like one of those annoying songs that children sing- wait a minute!" Jack suddenly took off running, determined to make it out of town, to find the source of the song that got on everybody's nerves. Lisa followed him, and by the time she caught up with him-  
  
He had Lock, Shock, and Barrel wrapped up in his gangly arms, holding him to his chest and hugging them like they had come back from the dead. They, too, shared this affection; they hugged him back and shouted and squealed and wiggled as children do. Standing beside them was -  
  
"ISAAC!" Lisa charged the bone-goyle and hugged him with her wings and arms. "Isaac, you're okay! I didn't kill you!"  
  
"I'm glad you're back to normal, Lisa," Isaac grunted through squished ribs. The she-goyle gasped and dropped Isaac onto his feet. "Oh, man, Isaac, am I sorry! I mean, the whole demon possession-"  
  
"Lisa?"  
  
"-and the insults, and-"  
  
"Lisa?"  
  
"the punches, and th-"  
  
"LISA! It's alright!" Isaac gently held Lisa's shoulders. "It's okay, Jack explained everything to me."  
  
Lisa smiled coyly and bopped Isaac playfully on the shoulder with her wing. "So, we're done now, right?"  
  
Isaac pulled her into another hug. "Of course we are...."  
  
AND THAT'S THE END!  
  
Um, author's notes, author's notes, um...  
  
Double F, Hi! I just realized that I made you into a sphinx for the TNBC section! Do you mind?  
  
Lisa and Isaac fluff, EW! That was hard to write.  
  
I do not own the Kingdom Hearts monsters or characters, Shiro and Kurai belong to me friend Double F (she had fanart of them), and a couple of the monsters were mine (like the black dragons and lions and stuff).  
  
And that's it! Bye! 


End file.
